


my world begins anew

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Voltron Oneshots [42]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Injury Recovery, Just to be safe, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic I Love You, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Recovery, Team as Family, Worried Shiro (Voltron), tags from last time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 10:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18163799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: A sequel to my world is over one more time, after the Octan have been driven from Keith's mind. The team has a lot of work to do to heal things they didn't even know were broken.





	my world begins anew

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all asked for a sequel, and alas, I couldn't resist. Enjoy.

Of course, that didn’t mean everything was going to be ok  _ that exact moment.  _

They were all still sitting on the training room floor in their armor, sniffling and tearful. Keith was still unconscious after once again being forced to relive his worst memories, this time without warning or consent. 

They were out of the woods, but still had a mountain to climb. 

Shiro, after forcing himself to regain his composure, pulled away from the dogpile of Paladins. He had to bear up now to take care of Keith. But before he had the chance to get to his feet, Hunk’s voice was stopping him. 

“Shiro, wait.”

He paused. Sometimes, when Hunk put his foot down on something, he’d get this mulish set to his jaw and a hard glitter in his eyes. 

Now was not one of those times. Now he was wringing his hands together in his lap, tears still drying on his cheeks, but still he spoke. 

“We should-- will you let us help this time?”

Shiro blinked, and Pidge took advantage of his surprise. 

“Yeah, you should let us. We’re a team, right?”

“He should know we’re here for him,” murmured Lance in addition. 

Allura and Coran, so far, said nothing-- letting the Paladins sort this out for themselves. Shiro let out a heavy sigh and tried to straighten out his tangled, muddled thoughts. 

Last time, he’d shut the others out for Keith’s sake, to protect the vulnerable side of him those memories resided in. But it was too late for that now. They’d seen-- how much, he didn't know. But they’d seen through the cracks, through the slats of the closed blinds and into Keith’s past, and now would there really be a point in keeping them at arm's length?

God, he didn’t know. He was exhausted.

“Alright,” he relented, making the other Paladins give sighs of relief. “I guess we can set up in the lounge this time. I should get him changed out of his armor.”

“Can I come?” Pidge piped up. “I can carry the big blanket down for him.”

For some reason, that made him smile. 

“Sure, Pidge. Thanks.”

“I’m going to make food,” said Hunk, finally beginning to show some of that determined glimmer. “Lance, you come help me.”

He hauled the Blue Paladin to his feet by his wrist, and with that the group dispersed. Scattering to their tasks. 

Shiro went with bones made of lead. 

* * *

“What did you see?”

Hunk’s shoulders hunched over the pot he was stirring. He and Lance were in the kitchen now, having changed out of their armor, and until now the room had been ruled by oppressive silence. Lance’s question was an attempt to break it, but when Hunk thought about it, his throat closed with tears. 

When it became clear that he wasn’t going to answer, Lance continued on himself. 

“I saw a fight. At a school. A bunch of kids beat him up and no one came to help him.”

Hunk swallowed, sighed, and gave the pot another stir. 

“Come on man, I feel like I’m going crazy.”

He understood. This was how Lance processed things-- he talked through them. And now, finally seeing some of what Shiro had been trying so hard to keep them out of, it definitely needed some processing time. 

“I saw a house,” he said in a whisper. In his periphery Lance leaned closer, trying to hear, but Hunk couldn’t make himself speak louder. That terrible silence that had ruled that tiny kitchen was still bearing down on him, the slam of the car door like the click of a gun hammer before it went off. 

“It was empty, nobody was home but Keith, but he still crept around like he didn’t want to be seen.” He paused for a shuddering breath and stirred the pot, perhaps more vigorously than necessary. “He was really young, and I think he was hungry. He climbed up on a counter to get something out of a cupboard, but before he could get it a car door closed outside, and he gave up. Whoever was outside scared him enough that he’d rather be hungry.” 

For a moment all was still, like a great cosmic pause button had been pressed.

Then the timer went off, and Hunk moved the pot off the heat, and Lance let out a breath so heavy he seemed to deflate. 

“That explains it,” he mumbled, barely audible over the clangs and clinks of Hunk gathering dishes. 

“Explains what?”

Lance, perched on the counter, stared down at his hanging feet. A concerned frown pressed his lips. 

“Have you noticed how Keith never asks for seconds? Even if we haven’t gotten to eat all day, even if everybody else takes more, he never asks for more than we give him.”

Hunk’s stomach sank, and all at once he felt so exhausted he had to put his stack of bowls on the counter before he dropped them. 

He had noticed. In their first few weeks of being Paladins, he noticed how Keith would devour his food just as eagerly as Lance, but when Lance went back for seconds or thirds, Keith would just sit and wait for everyone else to finish. But he’d dismissed it as him just not having a big appetite; or, later on, something to do with his Galra side.

He’d dismissed a lot of things about Keith as having to do with his Galra side.

Now he knew. 

* * *

Pidge waited outside while Shiro got Keith out of his armor and into his clothes, briefly nipping back to her room to change as well before returning. 

She shuffled in when Shiro opened the door, silent as she made her way to the bed and began to gather up the big fluffy blanket that had become Keith’s favorite over the last few weeks. But after a moment she stopped, hands going limp over the fabric. 

“I saw Kerberos,” she said dully, and Shiro’s chest tightened. 

He cleared his throat, trying to banish the tears threatening to reappear. 

“That must’ve been hard to see.” 

He wouldn’t know. He hadn’t been there.

“He gave up.” Pidge’s voice cracked in the middle of the second word, and Shiro heard her sniffle, and it was even thicker when she kept speaking. “He was just-- he gave up.”

Shiro crossed the room to join her. Keith was laid out on the bed, still unconscious, the duvet Pidge had still failed to gather bunched below his feet.

A quiet sob shook Pidge’s small shoulders. Shiro wanted to reach out and comfort, but with Kerberos… he just didn’t know how. She sniffled again, drawing an arm across her cheeks. 

“This might sound weird, but… I’m kind of glad he got expelled. I think finding Blue gave him something to live for.”

Shiro wasn’t sure Keith thought of it that way. Ever since they’d become Paladins Keith had flinched away from mention of the Garrison, cheeks burning whenever Lance called him a dropout. But maybe they could change that… once he woke up. 

“I don’t know, Pidge.” He pushed his hair back, lamenting the fact that he was still in his armor. After he brought Keith to the lounge, he might have time to change before he woke up. 

“What did you see?”

Shiro turned sharply away. Without thinking further he pulled Keith’s limp form towards him and hauled him up in his arms, ignoring how Pidge’s eyes bored into the side of his head. 

“Bring the blanket,” he said gruffly, and without looking to see if she was following, left the room. 

He wasn’t going to talk about it. It wasn’t his story to tell. 

* * *

“Don’t sit too close, we don’t want him to feel crowded.”

Lance obligingly scooted back a few feet. He, Hunk, and Pidge were all clustered on the floor in the middle of the curve of the lounge sofa, Hunk’s pot of soup and stack of bowls beside them. Shiro was the only one on the couch, sitting at Keith’s feet as he slumbered. Coran had dropped by to deliver a bundle of juice packets, and Allura had provided a teetering pile of luxuriously soft pillows for them to rest upon.

Now they were just… waiting.

Lance hated waiting. His knee bounced anxiously at his side, fingers fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket. Pidge had her laptop out but hadn’t struck a key in more than half an hour. Hunk fussed, moving pillows this way and that and adjusting his bowls. He probably would’ve been fussing over Keith too if Shiro hadn’t warned them against touching him. And Shiro just sat, and waited, smothered by an aura of melancholy. 

At length, eventually, finally, after seemingly a million freaking years, Keith began to stir. 

They all watched with bated breath as his eyes fluttered open and blinked away the bleariness of sleep. They fell on Shiro, and he gave a tired groan.

“Wh’t ‘appened?” he mumbled, and the tension in Lance’s muscles loosened a little. He wasn’t curled into a ball screaming, or crying, so his worst case scenario threshold was already passed. 

Shiro was the one who answered, in a voice softer than clouds, “It was the Octan.”

“Huh?”

And so Shiro explained what had happened, all while the others sat in silence and watched. Keith listened wordlessly with dazed eyes-- until he got to the end, where they’d all gone into his mindscape, and Keith went a shade paler. 

“It’s ok,” Lance blurted out, “we just want to help.”

Keith blinked, as though confused, and Shiro shook his head at him a bit before speaking again. 

“How are you feeling?”

He blinked again, several times. His jaw worked and for a moment Lance feared he was going to have another bout of mutism, but then his mouth opened and he spoke. 

“It was… different this time. I didn’t really remember anything. It was just emotions. A lot. Like a storm.”

This time when he blinked it was slow, a tired flutter of his eyelids, a sign Shiro read and jumped upon almost before Lance even comprehended the motion. 

“Do you want to go back to sleep?”

Keith hesitated, even as his eyes fought to close, and Shiro’s voice gentled again in response. 

“It’s alright. I’m not going anywhere.”

Keith stared at him for a long time. Then, still blinking laboriously, he murmured, “I missed you.” Then he was out like a light, leaving Shiro behind with an expression that could only be called bereaved. 

After a long silence, Lance said quietly, “I think he meant Kerberos.”

Pidge gave a half hearted snort. “Gee, do you think?”

Hunk fiddled with his headband. 

“Guys,” scolded Shiro, but it was reluctant. He sounded almost as tired as Keith. The way he slouched, and how his mouth twisted to the side, made Lance’s eyes burn a little. 

“It’s not your fault, Shiro,” he found himself saying. Shiro’s eyes lifted to his, but he wasn't done. “He made the choice to let the Octan feed on him to save all of us. It’s not your fault they came back. It’s nobody’s fault. There was nothing more any of us could’ve done.” 

And Shiro… Shiro smiled at him. It was small and sad and wavered a bit at the corners, but at the same time felt warm. 

“Thanks, Lance. I think I needed that.”

Lance returned the smile. Then the clinking of ceramic drew their attention back to Hunk, who was fiddling anxiously with his tower of bowls. 

“You guys can go ahead and eat,” Shiro said, his voice maybe a tad brighter than before. “He probably won’t wake up for awhile.”

Hunk gave in, though with a frown, and made Lance and Pidge swear to leave at least two bowls worth for Keith. Shiro declined to have any.

And they went back to waiting. 

* * *

Pidge was the only one still awake when Keith started stirring again. The other boys had nodded off one by one, exhausted by their mental ordeals, leaving her to keep watch over them. Of course she could’ve slept, but didn’t necessarily want to. Her dreams might take her back to that gray void, a shell of a person bathed in orange kneeling before an empty altar.

When she noticed him beginning to move more, even going so far as to turn on his side and pry his eyes open for a moment, she immediately set her laptop to the side and set about waking the others. 

By the time Keith managed to keep his eyes open for more than thirty seconds everyone was awake and restraining themselves from crowding too close. After a moment of blank staring, Keith braced himself on trembling arms and managed to lever himself upright, the back of his hair mussed and sticking up every which way. 

Hunk was the first to venture speaking. 

“Hey, Keith!” he said, exceedingly cheerfully. “You hungry?”

Keith took a second to process what had been said before giving a wordless nod. It made Pidge sit up a bit straighter, noticing the lack of speech, but if Hunk was paying attention he didn’t show it. He just filled up a bowl with some of the leftover soup, just barely still warm. 

“You, uh… you don’t all have to stay,” Keith murmured as Hunk passed him the bowl. “The Octan are gone now-- I’m fine.”

“But you’re not fine,” argued Pidge, “you were still recovering from the first time, and now all of this--”

Keith’s expression suddenly shuttered, bringing Pidge to a stammering halt. 

“I’m  _ fine,  _ Pidge,” he said in a near-growl. “I don’t need pity.”

“It’s not pity!” For a moment she floundered, biting her lip. She wasn’t incredibly good at words or dealing with her emotions-- now she had to explain how she was feeling to someone who was even worse at it than she was. “It’s just-- we-- ugh!”

That’s when Lance (bless him) interjected. 

“We just care about you,” he said, for once deciding to be serious. “And we’re worried, and we want you to get better. Really get better, not just hide because you think we won’t care.”

Keith obstinately busied himself eating his soup, and refused to meet any of their eyes-- even Shiro’s. 

Pidge was looking to him for help. They all were, but Shiro seemed just as lost as the rest of them. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe they should’ve let him help Keith on his own.

Then it clicked.

“We love you.”

Keith froze, spoon halfway to his lips. Pidge barreled onwards.

“We-- we’re a family up here, right? The seven of us, we’re the only ones we have, and you’re part of the family, Keith. You’re one of us. And I know we’re not great at showing it all the time, but we all love you.”

Dead silence.

They all watched anxiously as Keith slowly lowered his spoon back into the bowl. Pidge missed the first minute shudder of his shoulders, but not the second, and by the third they could all detect the heart-breaking sound of someone trying to hold in sorrow. 

Gently, Shiro drew the bowl out of his lap and set it aside before pulling Keith into his arms. And it was sweet, and tender, and Pidge nearly stood to slip out of the room and give them some space, but then Shiro’s eyes met hers over Keith’s head, and jerked his chin a bit. 

So she clambered up on the couch and plastered herself against Keith’s side. He didn’t even tense up.

Hunk was next, followed by Lance, and for a long time they sat and held him until he’d cried out all of the fear and loneliness and pain that had made him such a good target for the Octan to begin with.

Then, when he finished his soup and Hunk poured him a second helping without being asked, he cried all over again. 

And they were with him the whole way. 

 


End file.
